Celebrate Halloween week with these Halloween activities for kids. Have a classroom party with crafts, science, and STEM activities, literacy and math ideas!

As you’re planning for Halloween activities for kids in your classroom, you’re sure to find a gazillion great ideas! Included in this post is a list of 30 favorite lesson plans, crafts, STEM activities, literacy activities, and more! You and your students are sure to have a terror-ific time!

30 Halloween Activities for Kids: Creative and Easy!

Don’t waste any more time searching for Halloween activities for kids. Below are the best ideas for those kiddies who are looking forward to candy and costumes on October 31st. These are the classroom plans for which your excited little monsters, ghouls, goblins, and witches will actually sit still!

Halloween Activities for Kids: Arts & Crafts

Grab the buckets of scissors, glue, crayons, and glitter! Your hands-on learners are going to love these cute Halloween-themed arts and crafts activities.

Halloween Activities for Kids: Just for Fun

Who says everything has to be educational? Sometimes it’s fun to put away the books and standards and just take some time to enjoy a holiday. (These activities do, of course, have some educational value – but, shhh…. the kids don’t have to know that!).

28. Want to give your students a *healthy* Halloween treat on party day? Fruits and veggies are perfect when paired with a “Fruits/Veggies don’t scare me!” topper!

29. Harvest Hash makes a special snack time treat – there’s a little bit of everything in there from salty to sweet!

30. Treat the kids to a silly but boo-tiful door as they come in on Halloween!

Take a break from your regular routine and throw in a few of these 30 Halloween activities for kids! Your children who are counting down the days until they get to go trick-or-treating will be delightfully engaged in learning.

The BEST fall activities for kids in a classroom setting include arts & crafts, fall science, and STEM activities, literacy and math ideas kids will love!

Fall is a bustling time in our classrooms. The excitement of a new school year is still going strong and our students are eager to learn. Apples and pumpkins, leaves and the changing seasons all provide wonderful themes for learning activities. Look no further! Here are 30 of the best fall activities for the classroom!

30 Fall Activities for Kids

Need some ideas to use with your students this autumn? Seasonal activities are the most fun! These ideas, activities, and freebies are the perfect inspiration for your fall lessons and are bound to keep your class busy and motivated.

Fall Activities for Kids: Arts and Crafts

Coloring, cutting, and pasting results in beautiful fall arts and crafts displays in your classroom. When the projects are completed, your students will enjoy looking at them in the classroom and proudly share them with their parents at home. Try these great ideas!

Fall Activities for Kids: Science and STEM Activities

The following fall classroom ideas are full of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math. If you’re trying to incorporate more of these learning opportunities into your fall lessons, try these activities.

8. Mixing up ELA and Science has never been more fun than with this abundant unit. that includes lessons on pumpkins, apples, leaves, and more!

Fall Activities for Kids: Literacy, Writing, and Books

Give children lots of opportunities to practice reading and writing in their daily learning activities. A unit about fall most certainly needs a literacy and writing component. Take a look at these recommendations.

Just for Fun! Fall Activities for Kids

Whether you are adding onto a themed lesson plan, or finding ways to fill in some gaps in your schedule, these activities won’t disappoint. They’re fast, fun, and easy to implement on the spur of the moment.

26. Learning about apples? This apple unit is full of fun activities to use in your classroom.

These 30 fall activities for kids will help you once you’ve begun a fall thematic unit in your classroom, or just want to add some fun fall activities to your lessons. Try them with your students today, and have a fabulous fall!

20 STEAM Spring activities for kids: Teach about flowers, butterflies, birds, and plants with arts & crafts, hands-on math and science, and more for spring.

Spring is a great time to start fresh with new STEAM projects and activities. Spring is just the thing our classrooms need – bright cheery imagery, warmer weather, and rainbows! You can add flowers and birds into your arts and crafts lessons. Study the changes in spring and with the weather – especially rain and rainbows. You can even witness plants springing back to life and animals and bugs returning.

STEAM Into Spring! 20 Spring Activities for Kids

Spring encourages a bunch of new topics to for your class to study. To get ready for the new season, I’ve gathered 22 spring STEAM activities for kids that are perfect for the primary classroom.

Proud to Be Primary –Spring Butterfly Directed Drawing
This butterfly directed drawing is the perfect art project for your class this spring. Not only does it work on following directions, students will get to explore their creativity as well as symmetry and asymmetry.

Proud to be Primary –Spring Science Worksheets
These free printable worksheets that are perfect for any spring lesson plan. They cover parts of a caterpillar, life cycle of a frog, chickens, and butterflies. This is only a small sampling of what I have to offer in my full Spring Life Science Bundle.

One Sharp Bunch –Butterfly Life Cycle Freebie
Spring is the perfect time to teach about life cycles. Learn about the butterfly life cycle with the helpful book suggestion, daily activity suggestions, and free butterfly life cycle sentence strips.

Schooling a Monkey –3D Monarch Butterfly Model
With spring, comes butterflies! This 3D monarch butterfly design helps students study the different parts of a butterfly, while the actual construction of it helps reinforce what they’re learning.

Life Over C’s –Spring Flower Investigation
Break out the rulers and head outside where your students can measure the different growing flowers and other plants that start sprouting in spring. Repeat the process over a couple weeks so students can chart the plant growth.

The Imagination Tree –Growing Beans on Cotton Balls
Your class can watch how a plant grows with this simple science experiment of growing beans on cotton balls. Growing plants indoors in the class is a great way to track plant growth.

Chloe Me Just Me –How to Make Daffodils
Creating daffodils is a bright and cheery spring craft for kids. It allows students to express their creativity and put their engineering skills to good use.

Fun-a-Day –Color Experiment with Coffee Filter Flowers
This fun color experiment will have your students using liquid watercolors in eyedroppers to dye coffee filter flowers. Watch the colors mix with one another and spark a conversation about saturation versus over-saturation.

Fun-a-Day –Spring Math Game
Here’s a spring-themed math activity that will help students identify numbers set in the style of a fun game. Students can play with a partner or in small groups. There are also different variants to the game offered.

Kitchen Counter Chronicle –Dyeing Carnations Science Experiment
Everyone loves some fun color science! This dying carnations activity will be exciting for students all day long. They will be able to see the change in the flowers’ colors the entire day and it’s complete transformation the next morning.

Buggy and Buddy –Sun Shelter Experiment
Using pipe cleaners and UV-sensitive beads, students get to make a little animal. This science and engineering activity will challenge students to create a habitat that will protect their animal from the sun.

Buggy and Buddy –Chromatography Butterfly Craft
This two-part activity starts with a fun science experiment to see what each marker’s color is made of (what colors mix to make a new color). Once the coffee filters have dried, students make cute and colorful spring butterflies out of them.

Natural Beach Living –Pond Theme Activities & Printables
You don’t need to go to the pond for this activity, scoop up some water and bring the pond to your students! Not only will it be fun having the students inspect the pond water, but there are also free printable activities to do as well.

Natural Beach Living –Ladybug Math Printable Counting Clip Activity
This ladybug count and clip game is a simple math activity that will give your students a great visual and hands-on way to recognize numbers. If you want to add a fun craft element to it, you can have your students help paint the clothes pins red and add on wings to make ladybugs.

A Little Pinch of Perfect –Insect Science Activity
It only takes some playdough and a few craft supplies for students to make these fun insects. It also opens up discussion on insects and helps teach the various parts.

I Heart Crafty Things –Static Electricity
With a balloon and tissue paper wings for a butterfly, have a discussion and hands-on experiment on how static electricity works.

Artsy Craftsy Mom –Umbrella Counting and Color Sorting
Spring is known for having a rainy period, so umbrellas are the perfect image to use in this counting and color sorting game. Every umbrella is assigned a number and is a specific color. This is a fun activity that does double duty!

Pink Stripey Socks –Crystal Flowers
This is another fun science project for kids where they start with a hypothesis and monitor the jar of flowers over time to see how it changes and what that change is.

Pre-K Pages –Leaves Math Activity
Bring some of nature inside for this math activity involving leaves. Not only can students count the different types of leaves but they can also use them for texture comparison, measuring the different heights, and pattern making among many other options.

Mom Inspired Life –Butterflies and Flowers Number Line Activity
Incorporating flowers and butterflies into your activities gives everything that warm feeling of spring. This math game is no exception. Students will roll the die, trying to get their butterfly to the number ten (or whatever the highest number you decide to use).

20 Valentine’s Day Activities for Kids – Make it a STEAM holiday!

There are many ways to incorporate fun Valentine’s Day theme into hands-on activities. In the activities below, you’ll find fun art projects, critical thinking activities, as well as science, math, and even spelling ideas.

20 Valentine’s Day Activities for Kids

1 – Proud to Be Primary – Valentines Day Classroom Activities
I’ve written about activities for Valentine’s Day before and you should definitely check it out. I include games I like to play with my class, crafts we make, and even examples of printable valentines that are great for student gifts.

2 – Proud to Be Primary – Valentines Day Heart Pockets
Which leads me to Heart Pockets. This is a fun craft that gets students to really work on their fine motor skills. Once the pockets are made, we hang them on a bulletin board – making them visible and accessible for when it’s time for students to pass out valentines.

3 – Life over C’s – Valentines Day Cupcake Graphing
A great activity for students to do at their desk is Valentine’s Day cupcake graphing. Each student collects data based on what they roll with their paper die. This activity makes for great questions and critical thinking.

4 – Mom Inspired Life – Roll and Color Valentines Day Counting Game
This is another take on collecting information. By rolling dice, children will color in the number or hearts that comes up on their die. Using pink and red crayons will give this activity a nice Valentine’s Day touch.

5 – Buggy and Buddy – Heart Marshmallow Toothpick Structures
Creating marshmallow structures uses two supplies – heart shaped marshmallows and toothpicks. Not only with the students have fun while being creative and building, but they’ll also be working on problem-solving. Snacking on a few marshmallows is an added bonus.

6 – Mess for Less – Valentines Day Mobile with Tissue Paper Dyed Hearts
Bring a little magic to the classroom with this fun heart art project. Using tissue paper squares and a little water – children will decorate paper hearts. Once try, everyone peels off the tissue paper and will get a surprise as the color has transferred onto their white paper heart!

7 – Sugar Aunts – Valentines Day Noodle Garland
Craft projects with ‘unusual’ craft supplies is always a fun activity. Students will have a blast painting different shaped pieces of pasta that they can then use to decorate hearts.

8 – Fun-A-Day – Fine Motor Valentines Craft – Beaded Name Hearts
Beaded name hearts will work those fine motor skills as well as letting your students be creative. And students love making personalized items – so this is one craft that will be a class hit.

9 – Pre-K Pages – Valentines Day Bubble Science Activity
Blowing Valentine Bubbles is a fun hands-on project for students. Let them help you make the solution – you can even work in math questions!

10 – A Little Pinch of Perfect – “The Things I Love” Heart Activity
Pre-writing activities are a great way to get students thinking. This Valentine’s version is no different. By putting together pictures and words of items the students love, they’ll be strengthening their language skills.

12 – Hands on as We Grow – Valentines Magnet Activity Table
Magnets are another great tool to have in the classroom – kids love them! This activity pairs paper clips with paper hearts in a fun activity your kids will want to do over and over again.

13 – Life over C’s – Valentines Day Printable Read and Write Sensory Bin
Sensory bins are always great for students – but this one has an extra element added to it. Hearts with words on them are stuck and buried in the sensory bin. Your students get to dig around for the hearts where they then will practice reading and their penmanship.

14 – Mom Inspired Life – Valentines Day Wreath Alphabet Activity
This valentines alphabet wreath not only works on letter recognition, but it gets students to work on their fine motor skills as well. Plus, when the activity is completed, each child will have a cute valentine wreath to take home!

15 – Math Geek Mama – Build a Tower with Conversation Hearts
Whether ya love ’em or hate ’em, conversation hearts can be a fun supply to use. Try making these conversation heart towers with students. It’s a great opportunity for them to work on estimating, measuring, and engineering.

16 – Teaching 2 and 3 Year Olds – Easy Marble Painted Valentine Heart
Tons of fun to be had with marbles and paint! Just grab a box, paper, and paint and let kids get moving as they create this abstract valentine heart.

17 – Fun-A-Day – Valentines Day Straw Art
Who knew straws could be turned into hearts? This simple craft is sure to excite kids and create a cute display for any classroom bulletin board!

18 – Buggy and Buddy – Measuring Candy Hearts
Kids can complete this simple measurement math activity with a small pile of candy hearts to make it extra special!

Christmas Classroom Activities that are Sure to Bring Holiday Cheer

Celebrating the holidays and Christmas is a special experience for children. Bringing these celebrations into the classroom makes learning memorable. Teachers can accomplish this with the following 30 Christmas in the classroom ideas.

Teachers go out of their way everyday for their students. They love to share and celebrate with their little families at school before the break. Teachers enjoy decorating their classrooms and planning Christmas activities for children that they may not have at home. Taking this time away from the rigor of day to day school life to celebrate together is a magical thing.

A List of the Best Christmas Classroom Activities

I have scoured the internet (hello Pinterest) and gathered awesome ideas from my teacher/blogger friends to bring you the best ways that we can share Christmas and the holidays in the classroom. You will find a collection of activities, arts & crafts, DIY decorations, books, freebies, and more. Each idea is linked to the original post where you can find more details and instructions on how to use in your classroom. Happy Holidays!

Try this leaf activity! Learning about leaves this fall has never been more fun. Also, grab your FREE pack of leaf science templates!

Perfect Leaf Activity: Fall Classroom Excitement!

This post highlights a few of my favourite children’s books for fall that will help you teach about the changing leaves. It includes four different books for fall, an activity or two to go along with each, and a free science resource for teachers.

Teaching Children About Leaves in Fall

What do you love most about fall?

I love the changing leaves! The beauty in the variety of colours together takes my breathe away!

Fall is a wonderful time for exploring outdoors and learning about nature. Fall brings so many changes and these changes are fascinating for children. Collecting leaves on nature walks and learning about leaves can encourage curiosity and thoughtful exploration.

By teaching children about trees and their leaves, we are connecting with the world around us. By picking up, touching, and holding leaves, we are using our senses and connecting with nature. This science exploration is interesting, real, and something all children can connect to.

Children’s Books about Leaves and a Leaf Activity

I strive to have a bookshelf full of children’s books for each season in our classroom. I use children’s books to help me teach many things related to the fall season. My post, Favorite Books for Fall, is filled with the best thematic, fiction and non-fiction children’s books for fall available. If you are looking for some engaging and informative reads that are suitable for primary aged students, these books are for you!

Books about Leaves: We’re Going on a Leaf Hunt

It introduces children to a few different types of leaves that they may find on their hunt for leaves.

Children look and find colorful leaves along their hunt, as well as another surprise…a skunk!

Leaf Activity: Leaf Scavenger Hunt & Leaf Exploration

Before going on a nature walk with children, read We’re Going on a Leaf Hunt and a non-fiction book about leaves. Bring in a few leaves ahead of time to teach them what types they are. Teach children the names of a few leaves that they may find. You could also wait until after your nature walk when children have found their own leaves to examine and hold.

Go outside on a “leaf scavenger hunt” as a class. Give students a small seal-able bag that they can put their leaves into. Encourage them to use their senses and find leaves that are different colours, sizes, and shapes. Allow them to collect seeds or small sticks that has fallen from trees.

After the leaf hunt, have students share a few things they found with the class. Students can draw and write what they found on their hunt. Ask students to choose 4 different leaves that they like best. Students can draw or do leaf rubbings and write down how each leaf looks. Printable activities are provided for free later.

Books about Leaves: Fletcher & The Falling Leaves

Its beautiful illustrations and thoughtful story pull on your heart strings and make you really appreciate each moment in each season. Fletcher is a sweet fox that discovers the changes that fall brings to his friend, the tree.

He learns that his favourite tree changes each year and with each change brings a new beautiful surprise.

Leaf Activity: The Seasons of a Tree

After reading Fletcher and The Falling Leaves with your class, talk about the four seasons and the changes a tree undergoes in a year. Create an anchor chart together with a tree for each season. Have students give suggestions and help add on to each of the trees with things like leaves, buds, flowers, apples, animals, etc. Label each tree with the season.

After the class lesson, students can illustrate and colour the different seasons of a tree. A printable for this activity is provided later.

Books About Leaves: Leaf Man

Leaf Man by Lois Ehlert is a fascinating fiction book that follows the travels of fallen leaves. At the beginning of the book there are pictures and names of leaves for you to learn. The Leaf Man art in this book are colour copies of actual leaves collected by the author.

This book encourages us to use our imaginations and imagine leaves in new ways.

The pages tell a story of travelling leaves changing from one thing to another. It encourages those experiencing the story to find their own Leaf Man.

Leaf Activity: Leaf Collage

Children love using their leaves from their leaf hunt to make a collage. After reading Leaf Man, have students play with their leaves and outside treasures. Steer children to create something like they saw in the book or something from their imagination. Maybe a leaf man or women, an animal, insect, or fish.

Once they have created something they want to keep, glue the leaves and other items on paper. To prep for the activity, enlarge the leaf collage template (provided below) and glue it down on heavier cardstock or construction paper. Allow the collages to dry completely before hanging.

Books About Leaves: Red Leaf, Yellow Leaf

Red Leaf, Yellow Leaf by Lois Ehlert is a great book for teaching children about the life cycle of a tree. It captures what it is like for a tree to be transplanted and raised in a new location.

The coloured copies of real leaves in this book help bring it to life as we learn how a maple tree comes to be.

It starts life as a winged seed and ends as an adult tree, though its journey may be long.

Leaf Activity: Life Cycle of a Tree

If you have the opportunity, plant a tree with your class and watch it grow through the school year and into the future. This will be such a powerful learning experience for children. Use Red Leaf, Yellow Leaf as a guide.

Discuss the life cycle of a maple tree using the book. Create an anchor chart and talk about and illustrate together the steps it takes for a tree to become full grown. Students can then illustrate the life cycle of a tree independently using one of the templates (provided below).

Suggested Books about Leaves

I have each of these books on our bookshelf and I highly suggest you seek them out.

FREE Leaf Activity Resource

Grab FREE leaf science templates to go along with the books mentioned above and your leaf exploration by clicking the image below. You will receive 7 pages that coordinate with the activities and books provided above to help you with your fall leaf and tree exploration.

All About Fall Non-Fiction & Science Resource

Looking for more science and non-fiction ELA activities for your class this fall? This resource is jam-packed with a ton of materials for an in-depth study on leaves, pumpkins, apples, and more.

Spring-themed activities for kids in primary classrooms. Art, ELA and poetry, and life sciences activities, as well as books and videos to share.

Lively and Fun Spring-Themed Activities for the Classroom

This post includes a round-up of spring-themed activities for kids. Art activities, spring fiction and non-fiction book list, poetry lessons, and science units are featured.

Cherry Blossom Trees

Nothing says spring more than seeing beautiful cherry blossoms emerging on tree branches. It is one of the first signs of spring that makes us feel like change is coming (weather, plants, etc.). Every spring we observe the cherry blossoms outside and discuss how they look. We create our own trees to fill our classroom with cherry blossoms.

For this art lesson, I start with a demonstration of how to paint a tree using brown paint on white cardstock. Using a larger paint brush and brown tempura paint, we start by painting the tree trunk and work up to adding branches. I explain to children that trees and branches are not perfect and look crooked. We fill in our trees and let them dry.

For the cherry blossoms, we use small square pieces of tissue paper in pink, white, and peach. We scrunch each piece of paper into balls and dab in white glue. We place the cherry blossoms all over the tree branches until our trees are covered.

Once our trees are complete, I hang them and create a beautiful spring cherry blossom bulletin board.

Butterfly Directed Drawing

Teach your students how to draw and paint their own butterflies for spring with this butterfly directed drawing lesson. It includes free printable instructions to help you teach your lesson.

Spring-Themed Activities for Kids – Book List

At the beginning of every season, I fill our classroom bookshelf with different books to compliment our lessons and themes. The following fiction and non-fiction books are the best classroom books to have on your spring bookshelf.

Spring-Themed Activities for Kids – ELA & Poetry

Frog & Toad Book Report

Each spring I look forward to delving deeper into books with first graders. At this point in the year, they are reading with growing fluency and understanding. They are ready to explore longer and more complex books, beyond the simple picture book. They are eager to read chapter books. Frog and Toad books by Arnold Nobel are the perfect beginner chapter books because they have text and vocabulary that young children can decode and understand.

It is also this point in the year that we complete our first book report. We read each chapter page by page with students reading the pages aloud. I pass out a copy of the book for every pair of students to share and follow along together. We discuss what the chapter is about and share our thoughts. We complete a page in our book report booklets. Completing this book report activity this way helps build reading comprehension.

Above is a student completing her book report page after reading chapter one of Frog and Toad Together as a class. These book reports and activities work great for your small group, guided reading lessons as well. The Frog and Toad Book Reports include these ready-made, print and go reports that your students will love. Grab the Frog & Toad Series for your classroom and you’re all set.

Spring Acrostic Poetry Writing

Spring is the perfect time to teach and write poetry with April being Poetry Month. It also presents many new experiences for our senses and those are perfect for expressing through poetry. Create spring acrostic poetry writing with your students using thoughts and words about spring. Create a rainbow display with the spring acrostic poems to hang around your classroom.

Spring Science Activities for Kids

Science Videos

Playing videos for your students to teach them about science is a useful tool. We can read and tell our students about different occurrences, such as the butterfly life cycle or how the seasons change, but showing children with via video makes that concept come to life. Youtube is a great source for videos that you can easily share with your class. There is even an app called Youtube Kids that you can download for your tablet.

Every unit on spring should include the study of life cycles and changes that occur. Engage students with science experiments and explorations outside. Teach a comprehensive unit with fact filled text and interesting assignments about weather, plants, animals, and more. The following units provide a ton of lesson ideas, activities, and materials for your primary classroom.

All About Penguins: Non-fiction and science penguin activities for the primary classroom. Includes a free Emperor penguin life cycle mini-book.

Penguins are fascinating birds. Not only are they beautiful creatures, but their lifestyle is also so unique and interesting. There is a lot of value in sharing information about penguins with children. Conducting a non-fiction study of penguins and learning about their habitat, diet, appearance, and life cycle would excite and engage young minds. This post shares learning activities all about penguins for the primary classroom.

All About Penguins: Fun Learning for the Primary Classroom

Whenever I teach my class about penguins, we begin by sharing what we know already about them. Usually, children know some facts, but there is so much more to share with them. They usually recognize the emporer penguin. We ask “I wonder…” questions to get ourselves thinking about what we want to learn.

With each non-fiction and science topic we learn about, we use it as an opportunity to build our vocabulary. There are tons of new words to learn that will help children better understand the reading material we share. The many activities available in this unit will help your students build their vocabulary. For our penguin unit, I will fill a bookshelf of age-appropriate non-fiction and fiction books. I have included a list of penguin books that are age-appropriate and provide great information for children below.

All About Penguins: Fact Posters

I will also print and post fact posters about penguins. Each fact poster provides the most important information about penguins. These have been written with children in mind. Meaning they are easy to understand. They introduce new vocabulary and provide the information needed to complete the activities in this penguin unit.

The posters feature eye-catching images of penguins in their natural habitat.

Anchor Chart: All About Penguins

When learning about a new animal, I teach my students about its parts. We create a class anchor chart with a large penguin. We learn what each part is and how it helps penguins. For example, teaching students that penguins bodies are shaped and made for swimming.

We learn to draw penguins and label each part individually. I like to do a directed drawing of a penguin as a separate activity. Students will then be able to draw their own penguins to correspond to their writing this way.

We read a lot about penguins using the fact posters and non-fiction books in our class to learn penguin facts. Then we read each poster slowly, sentence by sentence and we decide as a class what type of fact it is. We use a large anchor chart to organize the facts we learn. We write facts under ‘Can, Eat, Have, Live, and Are’. For example, the sentence ‘Penguins have black backs and white fronts’ would go under the ‘Have’ category.

The reason for doing this activity is two-fold. Students are learning each fact one at a time as we discuss each one and place it in the category. Students are also learning how to distinguish different types of information and how to categorize that information.

All About Penguins’ Life Cycle

Any study of penguins would not be complete without discussing their life cycle. It is one of the most interesting in the world. I use the example of the Emperor penguin to illustrate how they take precious care of an egg for a very long time. Students find it fascinating that the male is the one who takes care of the egg, while the female travels a long distance to find food. They are amazed that penguins can find each other in their densely populated and very cold habitats.

We spend a lot of time learning about the different stages of the penguin life cycle. Completing different activities helps. We create anchor charts and we use posters to present the information. There are two different types of mini-books that we use. We use a life cycle storybook to fill in missing words and draw each stage.

We record the information we learn about each stage of the Emperor penguin life cycle and write it in our mini-books.

You can download and print this life cycle mini-book for FREE today by clicking the image below!

Penguins by Emily Rose Townsend – A non-fiction book with photographs and text that introduce the characteristics and behaviors of penguins and their habitat.

Penguins by Jill Esbaum – An Explore my World picture book where you will learn about the world of penguins and how they take care of their young.

Penguins, Penguins, Everywhere! – Bob Barner – Your youngest readers will enjoy the simple, rhyming text as 17 species of penguins come together in this fictional story of a parade.

Face to Face with Penguins by Yva Momatiuk, National Geographic Children’s Books – Penguins are examined and explained in the South Georgia Islands. Learn about their nesting habits, diet, family, and social lives in this non-fiction book.

The Life Cycle of an Emperor Penguin by Bobbie Kalman – This non-fiction book lays out the details of an Emperor penguin’s life cycle, habitat, adaptation, and appearance. A great book to compliment your study of penguins.

Scholastic Discover More: Penguins by Penelope Arlon – Discover how all 17 types of penguins sleep, eat, sleep, talk, and swim, as well as how they look after their eggs and chicks with this jam-packed non-fiction book that includes a digital book companion.

Penguin Chick by Betty Tatham – An up-close look at the growth of a penguin chick from an egg to an adult.

Tacky the Penguin by Helen Lester – A tale of Tacky the Penguin and how he annoys his penguin friends, until his behavior scares of hunters.

Penguins! by Gail Gibbons – A detailed books of facts about penguins, including their life cycle, habitat, physical characteristics, and behavior. The perfect book for any study of penguins!

National Geographic Readers: Penguins by Anne Schreiber – A great little non-fiction book for children that has exciting facts, easy to understand text, and captivating photographs about penguins.

Today I am sharing an effective way of building student vocabulary during our Teacher Talk linky hosted by myself and One Sharp Bunch. Each month, we will be sharing our teacher tips and tricks on different subjects related to the classroom.

This is an open linky to anyone who wants to link up and share their ideas and thoughts about the topic. We only ask that you share the Teacher Talk image above within your post, that you link the image to our post directly, and that you link up at the bottom with your own post. We would like this to be content rich, so please make sure to share your ideas primarily and if you have a freebie or product that is relevant feel free to share that as well, but only if they support the content.

Building Student Vocabulary with Theme Words

I have been using theme words to build student vocabulary for a few years now. I have seen growth with the system I have begun. Students are able to learn new words and use them throughout our lessons. They listen to those words read in books. They illustrate them and they write about them. They share and talk about them. They understand them.

At the beginning of any new theme (topic, unit, holiday, or celebration) we make a class set of theme word cards. For each new theme, I type the important words out, print them and enlarge the standard paper to 11″x 17″ paper, and slice them in half to make 2 long strips of paper with a word at the top.

Students are each given their own word card to illustrate. I prefer to pass these words out randomly in order for students to have a word they may not understand. In their small groups, they take turns sharing their word and discussing its meaning with their group members. This helps them think about what they might include in their illustration.

For holiday and celebration theme words, children often have an easier time illustrating the word because they are words that they understand. After each student has drawn (with a pencil) their picture and coloured it, they each have a minute or so to share it with the class.

After all the words are completed and shared, we put them in our theme word pocket chart. This becomes a place we refer to during our writing activities, journals or writer’s workshop, and during our thematic units and lessons. Children have the words readily available and they are able to use them as needed. This is where we keep our words until it is time to make a new set of word cards for another theme.

After they come down from the pocket chart, I hole-punch them and place them on rings. These rings can be hung or placed in a basket for students to refer to during writing or other activities. It is exciting for children to refer back to the words they have learned.

I also use this activity during our science units. When we begin to learn something new, we create a set of theme word cards to learn the words that many of us have not encountered before. I take this opportunity to introduce students to understanding text features and using a glossary.

Students work in partners to locate their new word in the glossary of a non-fiction book. I make sure to find plenty of non-fiction books that have glossaries of the given words inside.

They must work together to write the definition given in the glossary at the top of their theme word card. They must read it aloud together and ask questions if they need clarification from me. Once they understand their word and have written it on sheet, they decide how they will illustrate it. They work together to draw a detailed representation of the word and colour it.

This is a great way for students to develop a deeper understanding of a new topic. You can see that students are busy learning about whales, are reading and experiencing non-fiction books, and developing their whale vocabulary.

Once groups of students complete their theme word cards, they share and “teach” them to the class. They stand in front of the class and read the word, its definition, and describe their picture.

Students hold up their words for the class to see and experience. The rest of the class is encouraged to ask questions and share thoughts. We have an open discussion about the new vocabulary. After we post and refer to our words often during our lessons.

Putting children at the center of building their vocabulary has immense value. Children are able to use the new vocabulary daily throughout lessons and activities. Taking the time to create and learn theme words builds fluency and understanding.

I include theme words in many of my units in my store. They are included in all of my science and thematic units and writing packs to help build student vocabulary. To see all of the products with theme word cards, click the image below.

If you are looking for more great ideas on building student vocabulary, check out the Pinterest board below!

Looking for the perfect fall lesson plans and resources for primary? Check out these engaging fall science and non-fiction classroom activities for kids about leaves, pumpkins, apples, and more!

Fall Lesson Plans that Make Learning Exciting

When making your fall lesson plans, do you teach themes to your students?

Do you teach them about each season and the changes and events that occur?

I do too!

I think it’s important that children are aware of their world and that we explore it in many ways through our studies.

Fall ELA Science Unit

Today I will share how I teach my students about fall using my fall ELA science unit. These fall lesson plans are a blast for the kids. Before I start our seasonal units, I prepare posters, anchor charts, and materials to help what our study go smoothly. I like to use a lot of visuals as guides and for students to refer back to.

I teach my students about important vocabulary words that they will hear often in text and throughout our study. We use vocabulary posters with real images and clear definitions. I post these on our whiteboard and we refer to them often.

We also use theme word cards that children illustrate with a definition and an illustration. We use non-fiction books about fall and refer to the glossary for definitions. This is great practice in identifying text features.

To learn about fall and its celebrations, harvest, changes, animals, and weather, we read tons of fiction and non-fiction books. We also use fact posters that are full of key facts and interesting information.

We read the posters together as a class and use them to help guide our future lessons. At times, students read and use these posters in small groups to help them complete activities.

During our small group lessons, we complete questions sheets where we have to recall information from the fact posters. We practice writing complete sentences, making personal connections, and making visual observations.

One of the follow-up activities we complete after reading our fact posters, is the fact sorting activity. This is a great review activity for students to complete in pairs. Students enjoy cutting and sorting fact sentences about fall under the correct heading (harvest, changes, weather, animals, and celebrations).

Pumpkin Life Cycle

Of course any fall lesson plans wouldn’t be complete without a study of pumpkins, apples, and leaves. We learn about all of them individually. I teach my students about a pumpkin’s life cycle. We often take a field trip to the pumpkin patch, so understanding before how a pumpkin grows is very exciting for kid.

We create a life cycle anchor chart and record each step of the cycle using our pumpkin life cycle poster. Each record each step from our anchor chart in our life cycle mini-books. As a culminating review activity, we cut and paste the steps of the cycle and label.

We create pumpkin life cycle crafts using small pieces that we attach to string and a paper plate. The paper is the pumpkin and the string is the vine.

We also learn about the parts of a pumpkin, both inside and out. To do this, we bring a pumpkin back from our field trip or I will bring one from the store for us to dissect.

Then, we use anchor charts and headings to make a large visual based on the labeled diagram poster.

Children enjoy adding the large labels to the charts we create and colour together. We create and colour our own diagram posters after.

Learning about Leaves

I love taking my students outside for a nature walk in the fall. We each have our own bags to collect a few special leaves that have changed colour, as well as some other signs of change. Once the bags are filled, we bring our collections back to class and take out our favourite leaves to share with each other. Then, we create our own leaf pictures after reading the book Leaf Man by Ehlert. For a list of all the books we read during our study, see further on in this post.

We complete the same activities and create more anchor charts for leaves as above.

We hold and touch and explore the parts of the leaves we’ve collected from outside. Engagement and retention is much deeper when students are able to use their senses to explore what they are learning.

We practice sorting facts about leaves with partners as review.

Apple Exploration

Another fun event is when we complete an apple exploration. We read tons of apple books. Then, we measure apples and use our 5 senses to touch, taste, smell,fell, and listen to apples. Apple science experiments allow us to make predictions about if they will float or sink. Finally, we create apple crafts and do apple stamping.

We create our anchor charts and practice labeling the outer and inner parts of an apple. We also learn that apples come from apple trees and are picked during harvest time.

Since fall is one of 4 seasons, we do a comparison with another season. We sort and compare spring and fall because they are very different in many ways. We cut and paste the similarities and differences in the correct spaces on the Venn Diagram.

During small group time, we make observations and build our use of vocabulary in describing and analyzing fall photos. We make connections, ask questions, and infer meaning from the photos.

The most exciting part of our fall lesson plans is the science experiments we conduct. We do 3 science experiments; one for pumpkins, apples, and leaves. We practice making hypothesis and we record our observations.

As morning work, we make our fall mini-books. We colour and fill in the blanks with the facts we learn about fall.

This book provides a lot of review and makes a great final activity.

Here is a book list of fiction and non-fiction titles to help you teach your students about fall.

So now that you have all the fall lesson plans you need, what will you start with first?